He went on, but looking at me now rather than the sea—­looking at me with his grave, melancholy, angry eyes. “...After one of these convoys of prisoners the door remained for a moment open, and I seeing my chance slipped in after the guards.  Here I was then in the very heart of the Revolution; but still, you know, Ivan Andreievitch, I couldn’t properly seize the fact, I couldn’t grasp the truth that all this was really occurring and that it wasn’t just a play, a pretence, or a dream... yes, a dream... especially a dream... perhaps, after all, that was what it was.  The Circular Hall was piled high with machine-guns, bags of flour, and provisions of all kinds.  There were some armed soldiers of course and women, and beside the machine guns the floor was strewn with cigarette ends and empty tins and papers and bags and cardboard boxes and even broken bottles.  Dirt and Desolation!  I remember that it was then when I looked at that floor that the first little suspicion stole into my heart—­not a suspicion so much as an uneasiness.  I wanted at once myself to set to work to clean up all the mess with my own hands.

“I didn’t like to see it there, and no one caring whether it were there or no.

“In the Catherine Hall into which I peered there was a vast mob, and this huge mass of men stirred and coiled and uncoiled like some huge ant-heap.  Many of them, as I watched, suddenly turned into the outer hall.  Men jumped on to chairs and boxes and balustrades, and soon, all over the place there were speakers, some shouting, some shrieking, some with tears rolling down their cheeks, some swearing, some whispering as though to themselves... and all the regiments came pouring in from the station, tumbling in like puppies or babies with pieces of red cloth tied to their rifles, some singing, some laughing, some dumb with amazement... thicker and thicker and thicker... standing round the speakers with their mouths open and their eyes wide, pushing and jostling, but good-naturedly, like young dogs.

“Everywhere, you know, men were forming committees, committees for social right, for a just Peace, for Women’s Suffrage, for Finnish Independence, for literature and the arts, for the better treatment of prostitutes, for education, for the just division of the land.  I had crept into my corner, and soon as the soldiers came thicker and thicker, the noise grew more and more deafening, the dust floated in hazy clouds.  The men had their kettles and they boiled tea, squatting down there, sometimes little processions pushed their way through, soldiers shouting and laughing with some white-faced policeman in their midst.  Once I saw an old man, his Shuba about his ears, stumbling with his eyes wide open, and staring as though he were sleep-walking.  That was Stuermer being brought to judgement.  Once I saw a man so terrified that he couldn’t move, but must be prodded along by the rifles of the soldiers.  That was Pitirim....